


Fully Completely

by Adarian



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Self-Reflection, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 17:28:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18815629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adarian/pseuds/Adarian
Summary: "But if a woman's courage was to move forward, then a man's cowardice was to look back. To run towards what was known, even if it would destroy him. A woman could put aside everything to make a new life. A man fled to what was known and clung to it, claiming it was loyalty and not fear. A fearful woman might freeze, not be able to act when action was needed, hoping for a saviour, but a fearful man always ran."





	Fully Completely

**Author's Note:**

> Linked song at the bottom because I've been bingelistening to it because it fits so well

Brienne was not a philosopher and she could not claim to understand what made a man and what made a woman. Perhaps she should know better. She was woman born and knight made. She had walked both worlds. Perhaps the only thing she had come to understand was the difference in courage and cowardice. 

There was a woman's courage. She had meant to mock Lady Stark as much as compliment when she had offered the term. But these years had shown her again and again what the courage of women looked like. It was not the courage of a soldier but one of a matriarch. The ability that, even surrounded by death and destruction, to never look back. It was a courage born of the need to survive. Survivors do not dwell in ashes. And often it seemed that a woman did not rise again solely for herself but for a greater purpose. A child, a kingdom, for vengeance...all a purpose. All a reason. They rose again from sheer necessity. 

Brienne had thought she understood cowardice. It was a human instinct, the need to protect one's own life at any cost. But it was just as human to show great courage, to lay down one's life to protect another. That was a woman's courage too, not just a knight's. Though Brienne supposed that she was both those things now. Woman and knight. Both courages could belong to her, both were her birthright. The sheer will to live and the sheer will to die. 

But if a woman's courage was to move forward, then a man's cowardice was to look back. To run towards what was known, even if it would destroy him. A woman could put aside everything to make a new life. A man fled to what was known and clung to it, claiming it was loyalty and not fear. A fearful woman might freeze, not be able to act when action was needed, hoping for a saviour, but a fearful man always ran. 

Brienne had always expected Jaime to be afraid but she had thought he had dominion over it. He had left everything behind and had come to begin again. He was softer, almost vulnerable. He laughed. He cried. He was the best pieces of himself. He had not allowed himself to drown in ash. He had kept going. 

She had loved him for a long time but it was a glimmer she had loved. She had loved the possibility of him. She had loved the man he could be. When he arrived in Winterfell, she had known. She had understood. He had come for her, maybe, but he had come to be who he was meant to be. A knight facing down the apocalypse, willing to die to protect others, willing to die beside his friends and companions. He had made a choice. He had chosen an unknown future with her instead of doom with another.

Brienne didn't need Jaime. She had never needed him. She had never expected to marry, never mind fall in love. It didn't have to be part of her story. She didn't need a man by her side like Jaime desperately needed a woman at his. But Brienne had wanted him. She had wanted him desperately. She had wanted him to pick her, not just for her own happiness but for his. 

No, Brienne was more selfish than that. She'd like to think if Jaime had the opportunity to be happy with someone else she would just step aside. But that wasn't true. She would have been heartbroken. She would have been devastated.

But what she felt now was enraged. She had broken down into tears only because she hadn't been able to process her anger. It was an anger that she had never experienced before. It was a woman's anger perhaps and she had never felt it because she had never been scorned before. He had given himself to her. He had moved, not her. He had made a promise he couldn't keep. Brienne didn't expect him to marry her just because they had bedded but she had expected it to mean something. Jaime had only been with one other woman and even when she had taken others, he had only been faithful to her. Brienne had thought that meant it was over, that he had left Cersei. She thought it meant that he had chosen her, that she meant as much to him as the only woman he had ever loved before. 

But he left. Had he just wanted a woman to die beside and with the chance at real happiness, he had fled to a different destruction? Had the thought that perhaps he could be happy terrified him so that he had chosen certain death instead? 

She thought her ire might consume her. She thought it might strangle her. She thought it might kill her. And that further enraged her. He didn't get to have that power over her. He didn't have the right to it. How could he have done this? How could he have done this to them both? And for what? For a dishonourable death by Cersei's side? For a final destruction of his soul? For what? Why?

Brienne would never understand. She knew she would have to accept that in time. It would kill her if she didn't and she was no coward to look back, to mourn, to hope for his return. She was a knight and she was a woman and she did not need him. She was brave and she was courageous and she did not need him. She did not need him. 

Yet Brienne still cried, sobbing, unable to express that rage any other way. 

_____________________________________________

Join me in my binge listening, won't you? 

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, I haven't watched GOT since like season 3 because I was like yep, that's enough extra VAW I'm good now, thanks, but I really like the books and I love Brienne of Tarth so much, and like I've been waiting on a Brienne/Jaime cliffhanger for almost a decade so I've been reading recaps faithfully for years just to make sure Brienne is okay. I am, I think understandably, pissed off. This has not been a good time fandom wise for me lately lol
> 
> Also PS I personally don't view gender as so binary but just in Brienne's headspace as she works things out


End file.
